Pied Beauty

Gerard Manley Hopkins - 1844-1889

Glory be to God for dappled things—    For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;        For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;    Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;        And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;    Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)        With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:                                      Praise Him